The Great Inversion
By Jordi ter Woord
Publisher: Ter Woord
Published: July 1, 2026
ISBN: 9789083736808
Genre(s): Trade Non-Fiction; Social Science / Media Studies; Technology & Society; Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Popular Philosophy; Artificial Intelligence & Society; Cultural Theory; Attention Economy
For ten thousand years, ideas needed human minds to copy themselves forward. That has ended.
The Great Inversion is a trade non-fiction book about the moment culture stops needing us as its bottleneck. From ancient stories and print culture to algorithmic feeds and generative AI, Jordi ter Woord traces how ideas learn to survive, why the mirror of the internet feels so personal, and what remains human when creation becomes cheap.
This is not a digital-detox book. It is a book about attention as the one act the machine cannot perform for us.
Review Copies – NetGalley
About the Author
Jordi ter Woord is a Dutch writer, solution architect and IT lead with a background in philosophy and artificial intelligence. He has spent much of his working life close to the systems that move information through organisations, and much of his private life wondering what those systems do to the people who live inside them.
His non-fiction debut, The Great Inversion, is about the moment culture stops needing human beings as its bottleneck. From ancient memory and print culture to algorithmic feeds and generative AI, it asks what remains human when creation becomes cheap and attention becomes the expensive side of the transaction.
Jordi also writes Whimsical Weather, a children’s weather-adventure series about Cloudy, storms, patience, migration and letting go. He lives in the Netherlands with his partner and daughter.
